COVID-19 pandemic: U of T Engineering stories
Virtual reality makes unique chemical engineering lab accessible from home
For more than 70 years, the Unit Ops Lab has been a cornerstone for undergraduate training in chemical engineering. Now, Professor Ariel Chan (ChemE) is using virtual reality and 3D simulations to make it accessible to students who are studying from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Unit Ops is like medical school for our students,” says Chan, who coordinates several...
The year ahead: Q-and-A with U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip
A lot of adjectives have been used to describe the year 2020 — unprecedented, unusual, challenging — but Dean Chris Yip would choose a different one: inspiring. “What I saw across our Faculty was people rising to the challenge,” he says. “That innovative spirit is what engineering is all about, and I think many of the creative solutions we developed...
Making the most of an unusual semester: How U of T Engineering students are adapting to remote learning
Daniel Deza (Year 1 EngSci) always knew he was going to have friends at U of T Engineering — starting with his older brothers Arnaud (Year 3 EngSci) and Gabriel (Year 4 EngSci). What he didn’t anticipate is just how close the three of them were going to get this semester. All three Deza brothers are currently living — and...
Improved COVID-19 model leverages flow physics of airborne respiratory droplet ‘clouds’
After nearly a year of studying COVID-19, scientists are still grappling with fundamental questions — including understanding the dominant modes of transmission and predicting how “superspreading” events arise. A newly improved model produced by engineers and physicists could help. Last summer, Professor Swetaprovo Chaudhuri (UTIAS) and his colleagues developed what they called a “first-principles modelling approach” to understanding the factors...
flatten: Leveraging big data to fight COVID-19 in Mogadishu
Six months ago, Shrey Jain (Year 2 EngSci) was a first-year engineering student who just wanted to do his part to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. He could never have imagined that doing so would take him halfway around the world, into the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. “It’s been really amazing to see the realness of it, the tangible outcomes we can have by applying...
Three cool virtual labs: How U of T Engineering instructors are getting creative with remote active learning
A camera and a bottle of Gatorade were the key pieces of equipment for a recent virtual lab in Professor Jennifer Farmer’s (ChemE) course, CHE204: Applied Chemistry. “We told students that they’d have to determine the amount of food dye in the drink,” explains Farmer. Any other year, students would learn to operate a spectrometer to find the answer. “Well,...
Rapid COVID-19 testing: U of T team ditches cotton swabs for sensing probes
Amid a rise in positive COVID-19 cases — and a reported backlog to book tests and receive results in Ontario — Health Canada has approved four rapid-testing devices that could return results within 15 minutes. Meanwhile, U of T researchers are working on an approach that could produce results in five. The project is a collaboration between researchers at U...
Skin-care product based on U of T Engineering research donated to health-care workers fighting COVID-19
A U of T Engineering spinoff company has donated its entire stock of skin-care product to health-care workers fighting the global pandemic. Several years ago, Professor Milica Radisic (BME, ChemE) and her team developed a peptide-hydrogel biomaterial that prompts skin cells to “crawl” toward one another. The material was initially designed to help close the chronic, non-healing wounds often associated...
Smart UV lamp to fight COVID-19: One of 87 student-led projects to receive funding from Mitacs Research Training Awards
Bipasha Goyal (Year 3 EngSci) is creating what she hopes will be the newest line of defence against the global COVID-19 pandemic: a smart UV lamp. “Hospitals already use a similar method called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to sterilize operating theatres and other spaces,” says Goyal. “The challenge is that these systems are very expensive, and it’s hard to ensure...
Anti-viral copper coatings could help slow transmission of COVID-19
A U of T Engineering team is developing a new way to coat minute particles of copper onto the inside of fabrics, such as those used in face masks. The technology could provide an additional layer of safety to help slow the spread of COVID-19. The goal is to deposit very fine copper particles onto both woven and non-woven fabrics...
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